This Rhubarb Bread is another quick bread recipe winner. It’s a dense, moist bread full of complementary flavors you’ll love!
I love using fresh rhubarb in all my rhubarb recipes. However, you could enjoy this bread any time of year by using frozen rhubarb (from your garden or the store).
The bread is the perfect balance of orange and cranberry flavor to offset the tartiness. Plus, the orange glaze and sanding sugar topping add an extra dose of sweetness, texture, and orange boost.
As with most dessert bread, this Rhubarb Bread is even more moist and flavorful the day after, so you can make it ahead of time. It also freezes beautifully and makes a lovely home-baked gift for family and friends during the holiday season.
Looking for more ways to use up leftover rhubarb? Be sure to try my Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp and Strawberry Rhubarb Hand Pies! Or for dessert breads in other flavors try this moist Limoncello Cake Loaf or this Cream Cheese-Filled Blueberry Bread.
Table of contents
What is Rhubarb Bread?
Rhubarb bread is a sweet bread made with fresh rhubarb and topped with a creamy orange sugar glaze. The pockets of cooked rhubarb in the bread batter provide a tart flavor and interesting texture in this scrumptious bread. Enjoy it as a sweet treat any time of the day!
Substitutions
- Make a batch or two of rhubarb muffins using this recipe. Simply grease a muffin pan or insert muffin liners and fill each muffin cup with the batter. Bake the muffins for the first 5 minutes at 425℉, then an additional 15 minutes at 350℉. Test with a toothpick before removing them from the oven to cool, glaze and serve.
- Add in chopped strawberries or dates for added sweetness and texture to your rhubarb bread.
- You could add a homemade streusel topping to your rhubarb bread, which will provide an added textural dimension to this already delicious bread!
- If you just want plain rhubarb bread, then simply omit the sugar glaze from this recipe.
How to Make Rhubarb Bread
PREP: Preheat oven to 350 degrees Farenheit. In a large mixing bowl, combine sugar, orange zest, vanilla, vegetable oil, milk, and eggs. Whisk to combine well. In a separate bowl, sift together flour, salt, and baking powder. Rinse the rhubarb and pat dry. It does not need to be peeled. Dice into small ½” pieces. Measure out 2 cups of diced rhubarb.
MIX & COMBINE: Gently fold the flour mixture into the wet ingredients. Stir just until wet and dry ingredients are combined – lumps and streaks of flour in the batter are fine. Mix rhubarb into the batter to distribute evenly, but do not overmix. Pour batter into a greased or parchment lined 9×5 loaf pan.
BAKE & COOL: Bake for 55-60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the bread comes out clean. Remove from the oven and cool. (You can turn the bread out onto a wire cooling rack after it has cooled for an initial 10 minutes in the pan.) Whisk together the ingredients for the glaze. Drizzle the glaze over the bread.
- Rhubarb bread is typically moist and dense, packed full of tart rhubarb flavor that’s beautifully balanced by the sweetness of the bread and sugar glaze.
- While the orange zest in the bread batter together with the orange oil in the glaze compliment the rhubarb really well, you can opt to omit them if you wish or use lemon juice instead.
- Be careful not to over mix the wet and dry ingredients as it can result in an overly dense and tough bread.
- I use vegetable oil in place of butter for this recipe as the oil adds a good amount of moisture to the bread.
- You could sprinkle some sugar sanding or even coarser sugar on top of the bread prior to baking, especially if you’re planning to omit the glaze.
- In some of my other bread recipes that incorporate fruit, I coat the fruit in flour prior to folding them into the bread batter which ensures that the fruit holds position instead of sinking down into the bread batter. You can certainly opt to take this additional step if you wish – it will certainly give you a much more even distribution of rhubarb pieces in the bread this way.
- I love using the orange oil in the glaze as an extra citrus boost and subtle contrast to the rhubarb. If you don’t have any on hand, you could quite easily make use of orange extract instead.
- For additional warmth to this bread, consider including a small amount of cinnamon in the batter.
Wrap your bread loaf in plastic wrap or foil once fully cooled and store it in an airtight container for 3-4 days at room temperature or in the refrigerator.
You also have the option of freezing your bread (glazed or unglazed) for up to 1 month. When ready to enjoy, simply thaw overnight in the refrigerator and then allow it to reach room temperature before you add any glazing (if required) to serve.
I stick with all-purpose flour and recommend that you do too since it’s a sturdy flour which is exactly what is needed to hold up the pieces of rhubarb.
If you also intend to modify this recipe by adding in some berries or dates (all of which pair beautifully with rhubarb) then even more reason to use all-purpose flour!
This recipe calls for 1 teaspoon of orange zest. One orange will be plenty to reach this quantity of zest.
The orange zest is not overpowering but rather balances out the tartness from the rhubarb so I don’t recommend skipping it.
SWEET BREAD RECIPES TO TRY
Rhubarb Bread
Ingredients
Bread
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon orange zest
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- ½ cup vegetable oil
- ¾ cup milk
- 2 large eggs
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 ½ teaspoon baking powder
- 2 cups fresh rhubarb diced
Glaze
- ½ cup powdered sugar
- 2-3 tablespoons heavy whipping cream
- 1-2 drops orange oil
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees Farenheit.
- In a large mixing bowl, combine sugar, orange zest, vanilla, vegetable oil, milk, and eggs. Whisk to combine well.
- In a separate bowl, sift together flour, salt, and baking powder.
- Rinse the rhubarb and pat dry. It does not need to be peeled. Dice into small ½” pieces. Measure out 2 cups of diced rhubarb.
- Gently fold the flour mixture into the wet ingredients. Stir just until wet and dry ingredients are combined – lumps and streaks of flour in the batter are fine.
- Mix rhubarb into the batter to distribute evenly, but do not overmix.
- Pour batter into a greased or parchment lined 9×5 loaf pan.
- Bake for 55-60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the bread comes out clean.
- Remove from the oven and cool. (You can turn the bread out onto a wire cooling rack after it has cooled for an initial 10 minutes in the pan.)
- Whisk together the ingredients for the glaze. Drizzle the glaze over the bread.
Notes
- Be careful not to over mix the wet and dry ingredients as it can result in an overly dense and tough bread.
- You can take an extra step to coat the diced rhubarb before adding it to the batter as this helps suspend the fruit in the bread batter.
Nutrition
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